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Summary
Summary
Shunned and mistreated because of her mixed heritage and determined to avoid an arranged marriage, seventeen-year-old Loi runs away to Ho Chi Minh City with the hope that she and the boy she loves will be able to go to the United States to find her American father.
Author Notes
SHERRY GARLAND is the author of many award-winning novels and picture books, including Indio, The Last Rainmaker. She lives in central Texas. www.sherrygarland.com
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-- Amerasian Loi grows up in a village in Vietnam, insulted by all, hated by many. A modern-day Cinderella, she works diligently for her uncle's family, is refused schooling, and made to share her mother's shame. Only Khai, a buffalo herder, sees Loi as a person, and proclaims his love. Lewd, unsavory Officer Hiep also wants her, and her fearful family agrees to the marriage. Loi and Khai run away, but their plan goes awry, and the young woman finds herself alone in Ho Chi Minh City. Armed with a photograph of her mother with an American soldier and a compelling desire to learn the truth of her birth, she survives the ordeals of the streets, helped by a brash, street-smart Vietnamese boy who wants more than anything to be an American. Loi finds a fairy godfather in a Vietnam vet who has come back to find his own child. He fails, but offers to sponsor her and take her to the U. S. She and Khai are reunited at the last minute, and all end happily. Garland speaks with an authentic voice, enveloping readers in the warm, fragrant air of rural Vietnam and the fumes and noisy crowds of what Loi still calls Saigon. She also speaks of the war and its devastation: families torn apart, brother fighting brother, and the lingering effects of defoliant. The easy use of Vietnamese adds to the realism. This is a compelling coming-of-age novel in which Loi has lived by rules that preclude her happiness in a land she loves. Only the neat resolution and fairy-tale ending weaken the otherwise well-told story. --Susan Middleton, LaJolla Country Day School, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
PW singled out the ``strongly atmospheric'' writing, with its ``graceful interpolations of Vietnamese words and references to Vietnamese culture and traditions,'' in this account of an Amerasian girl's journey toward self-realization. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Loi, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier, has been an outcast among her people for most of her seventeen years. Her romance with Khai, a buffalo tender, is opposed by his family, because they consider her to be inferior. She escapes an arranged marriage by faking her death and running away to Ho Chi Minh City. The story is packed with vivid details of village and city life as well as Vietnamese culture. From HORN BOOK 1992, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An Amerasian born 17 years ago--an outcast in her Vietnamese village--dreams of the American soldier who appears with her mother in an old photo. Loi also dreams of Khai, the buffalo tender who returns her love but whose family considers her inferior. To avoid an arranged marriage, Loi stages a fake death and disappears to the streets of distant Ho Chi Minh, where she awaits Khai and considers going to the US as part of a program for Amerasians. When the two are finally reunited, she decides to remain in Vietnam, but arranges for a rascally orphan who's befriended her to gain passage to America. It's unfortunate that the issue of interracial children is not explored here in a cultural or historical context; rather, the author repeatedly reminds readers how beautiful Loi is because of her Caucasian freckles and curly hair--as if those features make her superior to those who ostracize her. That's the wrong message. In every other way, the story is vividly realized: effective and moving, from the people inhabiting these seldom- glimpsed lands to the genuine poignancy surrounding the plight of Amerasians. Glossary. (Fiction. 12+)
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-10. Loi, an Ameriasian child in a small Vietnamese village has been called hateful names all her life. Her mother shuns any mention of her American father. Loi runs away to Ho Chi Minh City. Should she seize a chance to find her father in America?